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In a recent article in a leading online magazine, the author recounts his ‘bad’ experience in a five-star hotel and then compares that with a supposedly ‘good’ customer service at another equally starred hotel. He says that the ‘bad’ hotel didn’t extend his check-out time (they said that if he pays extra it would be possible); but the other hotel gladly did so.

I have my own experiences of bad customer service. But we need to differentiate between bad customer service and annoying customer demands.

I remember a scene from my favorite romantic comedy – Notting Hill. In that movie, William Thacker – the protagonist – runs a travel book shop. One day a well dressed customer walks into the shop and the conversation goes something like this:

Customer :  Do you have any books by Dickens?
William :     No, we’re a travel bookshop.  We only sell travel books.
Customer : Oh right.  How about that new John Grisham thriller?
William : No, that’s a novel too.
Customer : Oh right.  Have you got a copy of ‘Winnie the Pooh’?

What is expected of William Thacker? Should he do something to attract this customer again? Should he send his assistant to get the latest John Grisham thriller and hand it over to the customer as a show of exemplary customer service? Isn’t that what we – customers – demand so often?

Before you complain next time about a bad customer service, think again. Were you an annoying customer?

Image courtesy: Webshots

In the competitive software industry, if you don’t keep yourself updated, soon you’ll be outdated. Yet when swamped with hundreds of concepts, methods and techniques, it is impossible to be updated continually. There is also a risk of, being updated in a soon-to-be outdated area.

Whether lucky or smart, I’ve always worked on challenging, well-paying and emerging concepts & tools. Having reached a certain stage in my career, I’m preparing for the next stage. I’ve followed ‘learn-do-refine’ model which has worked pretty well so far. With that foundation, here is my learning model for the next stage.

My learning model is of two layers – a core layer, domains in which I want to be an expert and a support layer, domains which will help me to practice my expertise effectively.

Enterprise Architecture

Many-a-times, those in software industry asks, ‘I have an answer. Do you have a relevant question?’. But successful (read profit making) companies are those that solve a business problem by engaging technology. EA brings this success story as a practice. I’m excited to learn about EA and possibly apply those concepts in the coming years.

Customer Relationship Management

CRM covers topics such as finding new customers, selling more to existing customers, and retaining customers. Now-a-days, CRM is considered relevant even for government organizations. I’ve been in CRM domain for the past 8 years and I’ve enjoyed both functional and implementation sides. I would like to continue to learn how CRM concepts help companies (and even governments) to be profitable.

People Skills

Executive educator, Marshall Goldsmith, says in ‘What got you here won’t get you there‘, that most of executive’s challenges are ‘people related’. To achieve anything significant, there needs to be a team (composed of seniors, peers, and juniors) and it is important to develop people skills to work with and with-in teams. Having been a asocial introvert, I find that this part of the pie is the most frustrating and emotionally draining; yet a critical part to be successful.

Project Management

I would broadly term this part as ‘Getting things done’ – the execution part of the deal. I’ve worked with some of the brilliant minds who are able to place best ideas on the table, but lack what it takes to get it done. Though I like to conceptualize a solution and communicate it with enthusiasm to others, I find it satisfying to get it executed – not really bothering about who gets the credit. You know what? When you get into that attitude, you almost always get the credit!

Financial Management

This is one area where I need to start from scratch. Executives translate every action in the organization into numbers – either profit or loss. It is poor financial management that has gotten the erstwhile famous companies into bankruptcy.

…and some fun

Another critical piece to continue enjoying other pieces. Though I don’t expect to be Ansel Adams or Mark Twain or Michael Phelps, I like to pursue photography, travel, writing and swimming as they joyfully refresh the soul.

Do you have a learning model? Do you think it is worth having one and pursuing it? Feel free to share your comments.

Companies spend big share of their budget trying to ‘differentiate’ their product and services from those of their peer-group companies. Usually these differentiations are add-ons to the core category benefits which are expected from their product or service. But do such differentiations work?

Would you return to a restaurant that has an impressive interior and calming music but serves absolutely tasteless food?

This is the theme of ‘Simply Better‘, a book that, Gary Silverman calls, “… a book about marketing for people who have read too many books about marketing”.  Drawing upon experience of Tesco, Toyota and similar companies, Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan, authors of the book, argues that, customers expect a predictable and reliable delivery of category benefits, every time; all the time. Differentiation does not matter to customers when category benefits fail.

The authors also emphasize the marketing principle put forwarded by Peter Drucker, ‘Marketing is not a specialized business activity…it is the whole enterprise seen from the customer’s point of view‘. Companies should spend their resources on improving customer’s experience at every point of contact  – be it marketing, sales, delivery or post-sales support.

These are simple yet fundamental concepts for any company’s success. Fact is, simple concepts are easy to be missed.

Few books grab your attention on the first page and keep it that way until the last. It is surprising that a technical book written by a technical person would be such a one. As I read every page of ‘The mythical Man-Month‘ (MMM), I was thinking to myself, “Damn, I should’ve read this book in college; or at least when I started with my career”. The author, Frederick Brooks, is dealing about those invaluable lessons that I learnt hard way over these many years in this field.

Every problem that the author talks about is so relevant today. Fundamental to the book is the ‘fallacious and dangerous myth about interchangeability of men and months‘. Even today when I present effort estimates to stakeholders, the immediate question is, “So if we double the team size, we should half the time to build this application?”. Brooks derives his response from a restaurant menu in New Orleans – ‘Good cooking takes time!’. Some tasks can’t be hurried without spoiling the result.

Or take the problem of communication. Though every one talks the same business language (English), their interpretations vary. Often one hears, “Oh! you meant that? I thought it was something else!”. Despite plenty of modeling techniques, understanding between parties involved remains a paramount problem in running a software project. (This is compounded in offshore projects).

Those of us who have handled large systems with different functional owners for different modules would have dealt with the issue of ‘conceptual integrity‘. I have managed such projects and it is not only difficult to integrate these modules; such systems throw enormous amount of confusion to the end users.

Building prototypes and releasing alpha & beta software are a common practices today. Open Source Software Practice advocates ‘release often; release early’. Yet, I’ve witnessed large projects with multi man-year effort and high complexity being developed in isolation after gather user requirements. When the project is released after years of development, the ‘actual need and the user’s perception of that need’ changed; and the project is a colossal failure bringing frustration and humiliation to the technical team.

These are just few of the problems and solutions discussed by Brooks. As I said in the beginning of the article, all the issues discussed Brooks are surprisingly relevant today. If you are in software stream – as a developer or as a functional analyst or as a manager – you should read this book. It will avoid you going though the path of agony.

I’ve been lucky, at least officially. Right from the start of my career, I’ve worked with some of the best minded managers. Each of them have inspired me to be a ‘little’ better person.

Dr MR Girinath

Not many software professionals get an opportunity to work for a national award winner. I had the privilege of shaping my career under Dr Girinath‘s wings. Even though he had achieved more than most other cardiac surgeons, he still worked hard. He couldn’t rest on past laurels. Every day brought a new challenge for him. And he loved it. Not only I learnt importance of hard work, but also of time – seconds determined life and death.

Dr PV Rao

Dr Rao belongs to an elite team of surgeons who have done successful heart transplants. If Dr Girinath instilled the importance of hard work, Dr Rao instilled a sense of confidence. He believed in me long before I believed in myself. I would attribute my success to him, though he wouldn’t accept it.

Sas3

With a bit of luck, I came into the radar of Sas3. Though I worked with him for a very short duration he made the highest impact in terms of management. His impact is so high that whenever I find myself in a tight-corner, in terms of project or people management, I question myself, “what would sas3 do?” and the answer has never failed me.

Steven Tilley

Oh! those were magical times. I’m referring to those days in Belgium. My stay in Belgium would have been shorter than it was, if not for Steven. He ensured that I never felt as an outsider. Whenever I was around he will request everyone to converse in English. Now that I work in a multi-lingual group, I understand how difficult it is – jokes and funny quips loose their essence when translated from mother-tongue. Yet he did it most of the time.

But his contribution to my career was not ‘making-me-feel-comfortable-around-the-group’. It is in those countless hours of technical, and sometimes not so technical, discussions that we had, often sitting in bars. When mobile computing was still in its baby steps, we discussed on technicalities of brining CRM and ERP systems into mobiles. He encouraged to think beyond ‘out-of-the-box’.

Kurt Van de Moortele

Kurt taught me what trust can bring about in a person. Unlike most others that I worked with, he treated me, a contractor, equal to other team members. He followed a policy of ‘trust someone unless it is broken’. He would tell me, “Keep the users away from me; I’ll stay away from you”. I still try my best to keep the users (from complaining) away from my bosses. Whenever I succeed in that, my bosses keep away from me!

Mahendra

The strongest point of Mahen is his decision making. I’ve not seen him indecisive. He might be gathering facts; but he is never indecisive. During his tenure in our department, there were few decisions that went awry. That didn’t bother him. He didn’t take decisions that made him popular; rather that served the purpose at hand. It is hard to emulate that unless one is confident.

Guru Murty

Success and gentleness don’t go well together. Not for Guru. I’d the opportunity to observe him closely during tough times, and I should say he stayed ‘a gentleman’. It is easier said; but extremely difficult to follow.

One could quickly jump into conclusion that it has all been only nice managers that I worked with. Not quite true. I’ve worked with some terrible ones too. They’ve taught me ‘how-not-to-be’.

I wish to be privileged with such best managers.